This is exactly why we had such a difficult debate at IONA about calling Artix an ESB. It is not like any of the others, and works exactly as Stefan says, by putting intelligence at the endpoints.
I would go further and say that SOA is about improving and refining IT more than developing new applications or integrating ERP systems, and the central concept is service reuse, not integration. I think most ESB vendors get it wrong because they are thinking about SOA as simply an extension of their existing products rather than an indicator of a sea change in IT - its current popularity reflects industry maturity and a shift in the kind of problems customers are trying to solve. Eric ----- Original Message ---- From: Stefan Tilkov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:35:37 AM Subject: Re: [service-orientated-architecture] Re: Tibbling likes ESBs +1 - that pretty much sums up my opinion. All of the ESBs I know are basically EAI products with Web services interfaces -- not bad if that's what you're looking for, but not exactly an answer if you're trying to solve EAIs problems. It's intelligence at the endpoints vs. intelligence in the network -- and to me, SOA is about the former, not the latter. Otherwise, you end up with lots of unmaintainable business logic in some proprietary graphical programming or mapping language, buried in proprietary repositories, perfectly fine until you find out the next acquisition or merger or vendor going out of business means you have more than one solution that tries to be the center of everything. Best regards, Stefan On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:40 AM, Robin wrote: > EAI vs ESB, I like this topic which has been discussed already in this > group. > > I think there are technological differences between ESB and EAI like > the use of standard protocols vs proprietary connectors. > > But in my opinion, the main difference between EAI and SOA is > elsewhere. In EAI, the "integration" is an after-thought, there is a > dedicated EAI team responsible for managing this integration system in > the middle. > > With SOA, the purpose is different, I think the back-end systems are > now "Service providers" and those services may have plenty of > consumers. The providers are directly in contact with them while in > the EAI world, the only consumer would have been the EAI platform. > > That's exactly why I don't really "get" ESBs as the perfect > infrastructure to support a SOA because I assume most ESBs > implementations are implementing again this "integration system in the > middle" pattern. For me a SOA is not a Hub & Spoke with Soap support. > > Robin > http://www.mulkers. net > > --- In service-orientated- architecture@ yahoogroups. com, "Steve Jones" > <jones.steveg@ ...> wrote: > > > > EAI is often one of the worst legacy challenges that we see, you > get odd > > languages (SeeBeyond's old "Monk" being a classic example) > proprietary > > products that had a small developer base to start with and are > non-existant > > in the support market and of course the vendor (if not bust) wants > you to > > "upgrade" everything but doesn't actually provide a mechanism via > which that > > can be done, so you end up treating the old EAI as a blackbox > system, in > > otherwords just like the legacy systems it was supposed to help. > > > > Steve > > > > > > On 27 Mar 2007 03:56:23 -0700, Gervas Douglas <gervas.douglas@ ...> > > wrote: > > > > > > I did some research into EAI implementations a few years ago for a > > > middleware firm. They seemed to work alright where you had a > totally > > > static IT and business structure... . Yes, exactly, how often does > > > that happen in reality?? Brittleness seemed to be their main > > > drawback. Any lack of flexibility and adaptability tended to be > > > exacerbated by the long lead times required for anlysis, > configuration > > > and implementation. In other words, by the time they had got > around > > > to implementing most EAI systems they were already out of date > to some > > > degree. > > > > > > Gervas > > > > > > --- In > service-orientated- architecture@ yahoogroups. com<service-orientated - > architecture% 40yahoogroups. com>, > > > "Steve Jones" > > > <jones.steveg@ > wrote: > > > > > > > > Likes ESB or EAI? > > > > > > > > "is dependent on sound enterprise application integration > architecture. " > > > > > > > > This is why I like to split ESB into Integration Service Bus > (the > > > old EAI > > > > problem) and Business Service Bus (the new Business SOA > problem), they > > > > aren't the same approaches and they aren't the same problem. The > > > article > > > > here is pushing the ISB centric view of the world, which as > it says > > > is the > > > > same thing that EAI tried to use to solve the problems, and that > didn't > > > > work. > > > > > > > > Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121
